


falling up

by Speechwriter (batmansymbol)



Series: The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, it's just kissing. kissing and feelings and an awkward dinner conversation, that's all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24760999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batmansymbol/pseuds/Speechwriter
Summary: Draco found himself waiting for Hermione to pull away.Any second now she’d do it. She’d go still in his arms, then tug back from him, looking shaken or even alarmed, and she’d say,what are we doing, or maybewhat am I doing, and he’d be forced to consider the questions himself. And then she’d spiral into descriptions of the short-term and long-term consequences, probably structured like an argumentative essay which, written down, would have filled three feet of parchment.Minutes passed, though, and she didn’t go still.---a Disappearances outtake that happens between chapters sixteen and seventeen. it's literally just kissing. thank you for your time
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772842
Comments: 10
Kudos: 162





	falling up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freshmuffintreeparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshmuffintreeparty/gifts).



Draco found himself waiting for Hermione to pull away.

Any second now she’d do it. She’d go still in his arms, then tug back from him, looking shaken or even alarmed, and she’d say, _what are we doing,_ or maybe _what am I doing_ , and he’d be forced to consider the questions himself. And then she’d spiral into descriptions of the short-term and long-term consequences, probably structured like an argumentative essay which, written down, would have filled three feet of parchment.

Minutes passed, though, and she didn’t go still. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Draco. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been less interested in speaking.

They moved haltingly from the dining room into the library and half-fell onto the faded loveseat in the corner, where they’d done so much research. They twined into each other while the wintry sun revolved through the window. She closed her teeth upon his lower lip harder than was really polite, and he found his fingertips going numb. He discovered that she liked being kissed at the juncture of her jaw and ear and neck; she shivered when he did it, and she was so soft there, like silk. He had to fasten his hands around her upper arms to ground himself, to keep from feeling dizzy. Was any of this normal? He hadn’t kissed anyone in nearly a year, but he didn’t remember it being like _this._

The first thing she said was,

“Draco?”

She hadn’t said his name all week. He levered himself up a foot or so on the loveseat. They’d become horizontal at some point, and she was lying beneath him, hands braced on his chest, her hair mussed and tangled over a faded pillow. During the course of the kiss, her lips had darkened to raspberry-red; her lashes were short and dark and tangled, the colour of her brows. For God’s sake. Had she always looked like this? How had he not been thinking about kissing her for months—for years? Draco could remember, distinctly, not even that long ago, thinking she was _plain_. Had someone dosed him with a Dimwittedness Draught for six straight years?

He made himself speak. “Yeah?” he said, in a strained, husky voice he’d never heard come out of his mouth before.

He knew she heard the difference, because the corners of her mouth tugged upward. And it was embarrassing to be caught out like that, to be seen in this state of disruption, but he was too close to her to hide, to look away, to veil himself.

“How long has it been?” she said with an uncertain glance to the door.

“I’m not sure,” Draco said, looking that way too. How long could it take Potter to put their applications in? And how long had he been gone already? There were no clocks in the library, and Draco felt like they’d toppled out of time altogether.

However long it had been, though, he clearly needed more time to grasp the simple, impossible facts of the situation: that they were here, like this; that she could feel this good against him; that he felt a tingling warmth everywhere they touched, like coming in out of winter.

“He’ll probably be back soon,” she said.

Draco raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying we should lock the door?”

Hermione laughed. He tried to stop from smiling too, wanting to project cool collectedness, confidence to the brink of arrogance—that was what girls liked, wasn’t it?—but he kept getting distracted by her sightline. She looked at his mouth like she hadn’t just spent a long time growing acquainted with it, like she was still curious what he would feel like. And when he kissed her, she pulled him down into her so immediately, so deeply, that it felt like something new, again and again and over again.

* * *

Hermione knew she was acting like a fool at dinner, but she didn’t know how to stop, how to be less obvious.

“How did preparing for Flint go?” Harry asked. A simple, normal question.

Hermione met Draco’s eyes, and they both looked away from each other at once.

“Fine,” they said at the same time: Draco offhand and convincing, Hermione half an octave higher than normal and as loud as a cat whose tail had just been yanked.

“Er,” Harry said.

“She’s not going to have a problem,” Draco said with a casual tilt of his head toward her.

Hermione cleared her throat. “Yes, erm—Draco told me what to expect from Flint. All normal for a Slytherin, really.”

Draco blinked, then gave her an unimpressed look. “ _Normal?_ ”

“Very normal. Ego games and Quidditch.”

“You’re not even going to say ‘present company excepted’?”

“Phrased it specifically to include present company, actually.” She forked spaghetti into her mouth and chewed, determined to repress the smile that threatened to break across her face. It was already such an obvious difference that she was speaking to him, joking with him. Surely Harry could tell what had happened. She had run cold water through her hair and across her face, they’d both neatened themselves up, and they’d been careful not to leave a mark on each other—but surely Harry had to _know_ somehow.

Draco shook his head, but she saw a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. As he tipped his glass of water to his mouth, she tried not to look at his lips, his throat, the lock of hair that curled behind his ear.

All through dinner it was like this. She was speaking so quickly she was almost breathless, a flood of conversation pouring out through the tap she’d stoppered all week, and while Draco maintained his composure, he clearly couldn’t resist engaging with everything she said. They were back and forth at each other, clashing one moment about the ethics of the Department of Mysteries, joking the next about Professor Slughorn’s mannerisms, and occasionally Harry joined in, but for the most part he just sat there, eating, looking partly bemused and partly relieved. Hermione supposed this was probably less uncomfortable for him, at least, than the past week’s icy silence.

After dinner, they did the washing-up, and after Draco dried his hands, he yawned and said, “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s only 8:30,” Hermione said a bit too quickly.

“Exactly,” Draco said. “I need a few hours with my hair, if Clifton’s really going to ruin it with dye tomorrow.”

Hermione forced a weak laugh. She wished her mind didn’t immediately jump to doubt, the worry that somehow, over dinner, he’d decided it had all been a mistake. Had she said something stupid? Only a handful of hours ago, he’d told her she didn’t need to be scared, yet now he was clearly making this move to avoid her.

Draco hesitated. She thought she caught a hint of consternation in his face.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if remembering something. “I’ll pull those Quidditch books first. You said you saw Fujikawa’s Aerial Encyclopedia in the library?”

Harry wasn’t looking at Draco, still scrubbing determinedly at a pan, his hands covered in suds. Draco gave a small, beckoning nod to Hermione, and the tension in her stomach eased. She wiped her hands and hurried after Draco, saying, “Yes, I think so. I’ll show you.”

They moved down the hall in silence. The moment they turned the corner into the library, Draco pushed the door mostly shut and said, “I can’t spend hours in the den with you and Potter right now.”

“What? Why not?”

Draco gave her a slow, lingering, all-over look that was frankly indecent. “Why do you think, Granger?” he said, voice laden with irony.

Hermione’s mouth went rather dry. She cleared her throat. “But you did a much better job than me at acting natural during dinner.”

His lips twitched. “Yeah, well, no offense, but that bar was so low it was practically subterranean.”

She let out a small laugh, a real one this time.

“Anyway,” he added, “I don’t really care if Potter knows, it’s not about that.”

“Isn’t it?” said Hermione, her cheeks warm now. Did he really not care if Harry found out? She knew from Occlumency that Draco was far from reticent, but for some reason she’d assumed he wouldn’t be so unapologetic about this. _About us_ , she thought with another jolt of disorientation.

Draco considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure, he’ll be awkward about it. But mostly it’s that I don’t really care to spend the whole evening pretending not to think about this, thanks.”

And now there _was_ something reticent in his face. He said it a bit too quickly, like he’d been thinking the words for a while and was worried about his delivery.

Hermione looked at him with growing understanding. _I’m not the only one who’s nervous_ , she realized. She wasn’t the only one who felt as if she’d gone out on a slender limb, half-waiting for it to snap.

Cool, careless Draco Malfoy wasn’t feigning nonchalance. Not here, not with this—not with her.

Something warm and secure seemed to coil around her, and she felt more rooted, less uncertain. He’d seen that she was nervous in the kitchen, and he’d done this immediately to reassure her. She wanted to reassure him, too.

Draco had perched on the arm of the loveseat, his legs stretched out. She moved forward, stopping when her feet were between his own. When he was seated like this, Hermione was a few inches taller than him. She liked the way he looked when he tilted his face up to her, like a kind of silent request.

Hermione’s voice had stuck in her throat. She lowered her head until her lips touched his. She felt some tension in his body uncoil, his arms looping lazily around her waist.

“I’m glad you’re thinking about it,” Hermione said quietly. “I can’t think about anything else.”

She kissed him again more deeply, cupping his face. His tongue slipped against hers, and she nipped at his lower lip, which he’d seemed to like in the afternoon.

He made a quiet, frustrated sound. “All right,” he said, muffled, against her, and she felt his left arm move somewhat erratically, and there was a _thump_ as a book flew from the shelf into his palm. He stood up, kissed her twice, hard, and pushed the book into her hands. “Bed. I’m going to bed.”

Hermione found herself smiling, leaning against the loveseat, as Draco glanced back at her from the threshold, pushing his hair into position, two spots of color high in his cheeks.

“Sleep well,” she said.

He shook his head. “I won’t,” he said, giving her that _look_ again, and she felt very aware of herself, in a way that was, for once, pleasurable. It made her feel secure. Actually, it made her feel almost daring.

“Good,” she said.

She caught a hint of his smile breaking before he turned away.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for freshmuffintreeparty :)


End file.
